My biggest language pet peeve is perhaps generational, but nonetheless regretable: when you say “Thank you” to someone who is – generally speaking – under say age 30, they more likely than not will respond with: “No problem” instead of what those of us – generally speaking – over age 30 would say, which is: “You’re welcome”. I miss hearing “You’re welcome”!

Saying “No problem”, to me, lacks social grace. When you say that, you are describing or assessing how _you_ feel about the favor or task that you are being thanked for instead of acknowledging the social nicety of a “thank you” with a statement that in turn acknowledges what was just said to you in a relational context.

And uh, like, you know, uhhhhhh, ahh, uh …
making noise to remain the focus in conversation
and an uhhhhhh other thing I’d like to point out is uhhhhhhhhhh
“they’re” vs “their” uhhhhhh as in uhhhhhh
“their going away” and uh
“you’re” uhhhh vs “your” as in “your an idiot”
but uhhhh, my question is … uhhhhh,
it’s actually not a question, and if it were, I guess I should
just go ahead and ask it but never mind, ’cause
but uh … I’d like to say … uh, and I guess
I could just go ahead and say it, so here’s my point,

at least there’s (or uhhh is that “there’re”) uhhhh
“I’m” and “my” instead of homonyms,
so no mistaking that uh and er uh ahhhhh of course,
“we’re” and “our”, same. Ok, I guess I’m uhhh done.

I hate people being referred to as “that” instead of “who”
as in, “He was the President that endorsed single-payer health care” when it should be “he was the President who endorsed single-payer health care” So here’s my poetic rant:

Who Are We, That We’re Not
By Becky Marvin with apologies to Dr. Suess

Every person in WHO-ville likes grammar a lot.
But the ignorant and careless simply do NOT.
They seem to hate grammar,
I’m really not teasin’.
Now please don’t ask why. No one quite knows the reason
It could be their heads aren’t screwed on just right.
It could be, perhaps, that a shoe is too tight.
But whatever the reason, their heads or one shoe,
They continue to show their hatred of WHO.
They insist we are THATs when we all know we’re WHOs.
If you had the choice, which would you choose?
The folks THAT are wrong or the folks WHO are right?
I may be picky but I’ll continue to fight,
To educate those who haven’t a clue.
I know I’m a WHO and that you’re a WHO, too!

The wrong use of ‘up’ and ‘down’. This is twofold; First, when traveling North, someone says ‘down’ or South and say ‘up’; second, wrong usage of ‘download’ and ‘upload’. ‘Download’ refers to moving information from the Internet to one’s computer, whereas ‘upload’ refers to moving information from one’s computer to the Internet.

The misuse of the apostrophe in making a plural or a possessive is getting worse and worse. The plural of pizza is “pizzas”, not “pizza’s”. I see signs in shop windows, advertising merchandise such as “stereo’s”! There ought to mandatory grammar and punctuation training for sign painters. Especially for those paintings signs signifying home ownership. If Joe Brown wants to out out a sign saying that it is his family’s house, he should not paint “The Brown’s”, but rather “The Browns”. Or maybe if he wants to emphasize the fact that the family owns the house, he would write “The Browns’”. By painting “The Brown’s”, he is suggesting that only one Brown lives there and that he is THE Brown. Anyone who has any desire to learn the proper form needs only to pick up a used copy of “Warriner’s English Grammar and Composition”. The answers are all right there. GOOD poll question!

I could care less about the surprisingly (to me) widespread use of “I could care less” when what the speaker really means is that they don’t care at all. In other words, I care about this misuse enough to say, yeah, it’s a pet peeve. If you say, “I could care less” begs the question, “Less than what?” Less than you do now, obviously. Which means you care at least a little, or maybe quite a lot — it doesn’t matter which because in either case the amount that you care is not zero. Saying “I could care less” is irrational if you don’t care at all, because you can’t care less than you do now if, in fact, the amount you care now is zero. Less than zero works in math, but not when it comes to giving a damn. If what you mean is, “I care SO LITTLE about this issue that I could not possibly care less than I already do,” then the shorthand version you’re looking for, people, is, “I could NOT care less.”

Know what I really hate? When people talk? And every time they finish a sentence? They give this little flip at the end? That makes everything they say sound like a question? Even if it’s a declarative statement? Sort of drives me crazy?

““I figgered about the Holy Sperit and the Jesus road. I figgered, ‘ Why do we got to hang it on God or Jesus? Maybe,’ I figgered, ‘ mayby it’s all men an’ all women we love; maybe that’s the Holy Sperit- the human sperit- the whole shebang. Maybe all men got one big soul ever’body’s a part of.’””

From Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath, but I am sure you ejumakated folks already knew that.